GM is watching Lolly at gymnastics, chatting with another mum. She has already explained that Lolly has trouble processing multiple instructions and retaining routines. The conversation moves on and the other mum asks one of the killer questions …

“How many parties does she have this weekend? We only have one this weekend but last weekend she had three!” Another mum joins in and the conversation soon moves on.

This gives GM time to scape her bruised and battered heart off the floor and put her sadness back in its box. Lolly has been invited to one party in this school year. LML has not been invited to any. For over two years.

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As GM walks by the living room door she hears CD saying “you wouldn’t be cold if you hadn’t lost your fleece at school Lolly.” Unusually he sounds irritated. GM sighs … It is irritating. The mostly functional parents have had to replace so many jumpers and cardies, shorts and sports tops since September. Even a pair of (expensive) wellies.

It seems that Lolly is expected to be able to keep track of her clothes and equipment now that she is in year 1. The mostly functional parents have an on going conversation about whether Lolly can keep track. She is not as emotionally mature as many of her class mates, nor educationally. Developmentally she is probably about 12 to 18 months behind many of her peers. GM wonders if that is ‘all’ it is though, or whether there is more to Lollies apparent inability to keep track of her belongings.

At home she often looses her current favourite object or toy, and will have the bemused patents searching for days. She often puts things in a safe place and is then unable to remember where it is. These things will often turn up weeks later, in bizarre and unusual places. Like finding the golden purse with current object of desire wedged between some DVDs on a shelf. This ability to loose things extends to her most precious blanky and toy doddies. Her ratty, scratty holey blanket, that came home with her is no longer allowed anywhere other than home or in the car, due to the many retraced steps and waves of relief when it has been found.

After bed time CD and GM again mull over Lollies tendency to loose things. GM mostly believes that the loss of yet another pair of glasses is probably deliberate, but is not so sure about the clothes. They talk in circles, not really feeling that they understand what, if any, the problem is.
….
A few days later CD returns from Lolly’s parents evening meeting. Lolly is lavished with praise for the progress she is making in phonics, in particular how well she is doing with her blending. CD tells GM that Mrs F is really pleased with the progress she has made, but .. But they continue to be concerned about Lolly’s ability to retain her learning. Not only learning, she has not seed to have internalised any of the classroom routines, and needs prompts to move between activities frequently. CD asked Mrs F to be more specific, and she described a particular daily routine. Every morning all the children in KS1 split into ability groups for phonics, with Lolly being in the reception group. At the end the children return to their classroom, get a book and sit on the carpet to do independent reading for 5 or 10 minutes. Every day, Lolly returns to the classroom and will stand, confused, until the teacher or TA directs her to the books and carpet. Every day! The mostly functional parents are quite shocked to hear that she has so little grasp of the class routines. This seems to be much more significant than a penchant for loosing her jumpers.

CD delves into Lolly’s book bag … “This is some of the good work Lolly has been doing” he says, “and these are the forms we need to fill in for the needs assessment that they want to get in motion.”

GM goes to bed feeling quietly sad and bad. She wonders if they would have picked up on this earlier if LML’s significant needs hadn’t overshadowed Lolly’s?

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GM has been hovering around the edges of the adoption social since coming across it at a conference back in November. It’s a place for fellow and prospective adopters to link up and share stories and experiences. The theme for the weekly adoption shout out is the work of my children and this gets GM thinking. There’s the work involved in raising Lolly and LML, this labour of love that is the main focus of the mostly functional parents energy. It is never ending and all consuming, but when GM thinks about the title it is the pictures stuck up in the hallway, the paintings and objects that litter the house, the school books and the tablet pictures that she thinks off. It is the work that the girls have done.

Over the week GM studies the pictures, painted piggy banks and ducks, the self portraits on the tablet, the collages and colouring books. The tale they would mostly tell, to a stranger entering the house is that it is inhabited by toddlers. Maybe a three and a half or 4 year old. LML and Lolly have just about reached the same stage as one another in terms of their mark making. The mostly functional parents are thrilled that both the 5 and 8 year olds have recently become much more deliberate in their mark making, indeed LML has started not only colouring in, but colouring inside the lines!! In colours other than black!!

It seems that maybe LML is eventually becoming interested in, or at least aware of, the product of her work as much as the process. Until recently all creative activities have very much been focused on the act of producing, rather than on the end result .. To the extent of having to battle LML for the biscuit mix, just to get some in the oven! Baking doesn’t seem to have moved on much, but in other creative areas LML and Little Miss are each making their own progress.

Both children seem to have taken a step towards understanding the written word, both writing their names over and over, repeating the read, write, ink rhymes (“nk, I think I stink! nk”). Lolly sits with the Which? magazine on her lap, pointing at different letters. “d d d dad”.

GM remembers drawing, colouring and making as a child and hopes that one day her children may be able to develop the interest and skills to enjoy this type of ‘work’. If only so that they could self entertain for more than a few minutes without the aid of electronics!

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GM runs from bed to bed, playing the doctor to the girls patients. Lolly puts the bandage under her nose and days “doctor. I’m Grandma J”, “Oh, is this your cannula? Like grandma’s” GM asks. This confirmed, the game progresses, involving inhalers, the need to sit up, struggling to breath and a very good simulation of being confused. Indeed, Lolly acts out her and GM’s visit to the hospice that GM’s mum is currently in. GM plays along, feeling slightly uncomfortable, but suspecting that her discomfort is more her bag, and not to do with the play being ‘wrong’ in any way.

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GM receives a text from CD “Erm…. Um…. (Whispers tentatively)… Lolly lost her glasses in school today”

GM can’t delete the expletive that bursts out, and heads in the office turn in her direction. She explains that these are the new (2 weeks old) glasses, that were fixed last week, after Lolly pulled one of the arms off. These replaced the last pair that were broken and mislaid repeatedly, so were replaced with a more comfortable, better fitting pair. There were the other two pairs as well of course, one run over in a car park, the other ‘accidentally’ dropped in a river.

GM is just glad that after the last visit she told CD (in no uncertain terms) that he would be going to the opticians the next time!

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It’s a conversation that GM has become familiar with over the past couple of months. LML goes through her teddies “Monkey? Who gave me that?”, “Betty bear?”, “Stripy Cat”. She lists her soft toys as GM confirms the gifter .. “Mummy & daddy”, “Aunty J”, “we did”.

Today is slightly different .. “Who gave me this” she asks, holding up a white teddy that usually lives in a box under the bed. “That was a gift to Lolly from your birth parents LML.”

“Do I have one?” she asks.

“Of course you do, look the gifts from your BP’s are here, safe in this box”, GM pulls the box from under the bed. The girls have been playing with the clothes and toys inside it for weeks. “We keep them in here to keep them safe”.

Lolly goes to bed half an hour later snuggling up with the teddy her birth mum gave to her.

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Everyone is tired, LML lies on the sofa, wrapped up in GM’s new fleece, Lolly quietly plays with Christmas toys. The mostly functional parents are both slightly glassy eyed. It feels like the ‘worst’ might be over though, for now. Christmas is done, the three days of visiting, hours spent in the car and a totally wired LML.

A long walk, including a spontaneous meet up with the boys, and it’s been a much calmer evening.